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10 Days in September: Inside the War Cabinet The Washington Post today publishes the first of an eight-part special series, by investigative reporters Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, on the US government's -- and more specifically, the Bush Administration's -- initial response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The series is based on interviews with President Bush, Vice President Cheney and many other key officials inside the administration and out, and is supplemented by notes of National Security Council meetings made available to The Washington Post, along with notes taken by multiple participants. This is what journalism at its best is all about...
comment posted at 11:52 AM on Jan-27-02
comment posted at 5:35 AM on Jan-28-02

The Lion of Kabul has died. He survived mistreatment at the hands of the Taliban and even lived through a grenande attack, but it was finally old age that put him in his grave. I'm hoping he's symbolic of the Afgan people -- that they will see their troubled times through to the end.
comment posted at 5:28 AM on Jan-27-02

Group Calls for Day with No Internet. Bah humbug.
comment posted at 5:22 AM on Jan-27-02

Justice Department Coverup Attorney General John Ashcroft was fed up with having his picture taken during events in the Great Hall in front of semi-nude statues. So he has ordered massive draperies to conceal the offending figures (cost: 8,000 bucks)
comment posted at 11:39 AM on Jan-26-02

Ex Enron Vice Chair Commits Suicide J. Clifford Baxter was found dead in his car in a Houston suburb Firday. Texas police said the cause of death was suicide.
comment posted at 4:35 AM on Jan-26-02

rockwisdom Some people claim they never listen to the lyrics, while others listen intently. As they listen to lyrics, some words may be incoherent or misunderstood. Other listeners may not care to know what the words really mean or how they may impact society. Regardless, lyrics are important. They provide expression, communication, and entertainment. They are messages with the potential to be very powerful, and therefore, useful in making points in our daily discourse.
comment posted at 7:37 AM on Jan-25-02

If your flamingo doesn't have a signature on its bum, the terrorists have already won. Someone has secretly monkeyed with the classic plastic pink flamingo -- and outraged connoisseurs are calling for a worldwide boycott of America's beloved bauble of bad taste.
comment posted at 7:29 AM on Jan-25-02

Phantom Patriot attacks Bohemian Grove. I'm no conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that the world is ruled by a secret cabal consisting of the Queen of England, The Bushes, The Sultan of Brunei and the ghost of Red Foxx. But Bohemian Grove is pretty freaky. I mean, a 40 foot owl statue? The Cremation of Care? Obviously, the Phantom Patriot is a little, well, off. But why do the rich and powerful need secret societies and kooky rituals anyway?
comment posted at 7:23 AM on Jan-25-02

Do you suffer from sleeplessness? Don't bother counting "the same dirty old sheep"!! Seems the old tried and true method does not actually work but do any of them? People are obviously obsessed with sleep in our sleep-deprived culture. What do you do to get to sleep and stay asleep at night???
comment posted at 7:09 AM on Jan-25-02

The Perfect Rock 'n Roll Photo A photo of The Clash bassist Paul Simonon smashing his guitar on stage has been picked as the perfect rock 'n' roll photo of all time. It's a great picture, summing up violence, anger, frustration and an adandonment of common-sense. But do you agree?
comment posted at 7:20 PM on Jan-23-02

Neil Bush is in Saudi Arabia "The US media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims and the American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be influenced through a sustained lobbying and PR effort," Bush, chairman and chief executive officer of Ignite! Inc., said in his keynote address on the concluding day of the three-day Jeddah Economic Forum at Hilton Hotel here. Does this seem appropriate? Are'nt the Saudis' cranking out terrorists at a pretty good clip?
comment posted at 5:01 AM on Jan-23-02

A procedure known as haploidisation could allow lesbian couples to have a baby that shares both their genes. The procedure may be available in 18 months' time. Sperm? We don't need no stinking sperm!
comment posted at 5:10 AM on Jan-23-02

Compulsory military training is not just for Switzerland and Israel anymore. The Universal Military Training and Service Act of 2001 seeks "To require the induction into the Armed Forces of young men registered under the Military Selective Service Act, and to authorize young women to volunteer, to receive basic military training and education for a period of up to one year." (more inside)
comment posted at 5:00 AM on Jan-22-02

Warhol liked Campbells Soup, and after eons of pondering the meaning behind his art, we can now answer why he gave Campbell's soup so much attention.
comment posted at 5:08 AM on Jan-22-02

Kmart on Verge of Filing for Bankruptcy ...guess you'll have to get your crap from Walmart now.
comment posted at 5:20 AM on Jan-22-02

Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo, Cuba (the way some people seem to think it should be)
comment posted at 5:04 PM on Jan-21-02
comment posted at 5:29 AM on Jan-22-02

Thank Mahalia Jackson for King's "I have a dream." "On August 28, 1963, under a nearly cloudless sky, more than 250,000 people, a fifth of them white, gathered near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to rally for 'jobs and freedom.'... Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had originally prepared a short and somewhat formal recitation of the sufferings of African Americans attempting to realize their freedom in a society chained by discrimination. He was about to sit down when gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out, 'Tell them about your dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!' Encouraged by shouts from the audience, King drew upon some of his past talks, and the result became the landmark statement of civil rights in America--a dream of all people, of all races and colors and backgrounds, sharing in an America marked by freedom and democracy."
comment posted at 9:33 AM on Jan-21-02

Happy MLK Day.
comment posted at 9:30 AM on Jan-21-02
comment posted at 1:23 PM on Jan-21-02

Could the Surplus be Vacuumed Away? A US Treasury official, who must have regretted picking up the phone that day is engaged about the macroeconomic effect of change ending up in vacuum cleaners...
comment posted at 9:36 AM on Jan-21-02

In reviewing ‘A beautiful mind’ NYT reviewer said of Nash "Before he married Alicia …he fathered another child…. and abandoned both mother and child to poverty. He formed a number of intense, apparently sexual bonds with other men, and he lost his security clearance ….. after he was arrested for soliciting sex in a men's room. When his illness became intractable and his behavior intolerable, Alicia divorced him. …. None of this has made it to the screen." It went on to say that "The story ….egregiously simplifies the tangled, suspicious world of cold war academia." Most other reviewers appears to have judged that movie on its merits as a work of art and seemed to like it. Recently, the plans to build a statue to honor the FDNY firefighters were dropped after a controvery broke out over plans to alter the original image of three firefighters hoisting the American flag. In an article that tried to put the later controvery in a context, NYT said that that "Sculptors, and artists in general, always take liberties". Conservative columnist Jonah Golderg in a different column defended the sanctity of ‘factual accuracy' in art. I rarely agree with Goldberg. But I think if one is depicting an event or a likeness of an event one has an obligation to stay close to the truth. Where do you draw the line between creative freedom and factual accuracy?
comment posted at 9:21 AM on Jan-21-02
comment posted at 7:03 AM on Jan-23-02

Anthrax Missing From Army Lab A story of lax security, missing Anthrax and anti-Arab harrassment. Quoted in the article is a Dr. Rosenberg who issued a report stating, "The FBI has surely known for several months that the anthrax attack was an inside job." Then why hasn’t anyone been arrested? Two reasons: "a fear that embarrassing details might become public, and a need for secrecy in order to acquire sufficient hard evidence to convict the perpetrator."
comment posted at 6:18 AM on Jan-21-02

The New WTC? The Max Protech Gallery in Manhattan has an exhibit of sketches and designs from artists, architects, and others with their ideas on how the World Trade Center could be rebuilt
comment posted at 8:31 AM on Jan-20-02

President Bush seems to think that abortion is unconstitutional. Does anyone smell hypocrisy here? I would suggest that he examine the constitutionality of his own actions before throwing stones.
comment posted at 7:13 AM on Jan-20-02

The Food Timeline: Want to know when people first started eating watermelon? This site claims to tell you (roughly). I've no idea how accurate their dates are but this is a grand place to surf foodstuffs. (Also links to some ancient, ancient recipes that sound mouth-watering.)
comment posted at 6:22 AM on Jan-20-02

Gigo-what? Europe's first brothel for women goes bust.
comment posted at 6:14 AM on Jan-20-02
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Jan-20-02

Is Your Cat As Smart As He Thinks He Is? If so, he could be in the movies. To find out if that's Einstein or Marie Curie staring at you over there, submit the beast to Hollywood Paws' impressive I.Q. test. (Dogs are su
comment posted at 5:43 AM on Jan-20-02

"Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke
Apparently we've reached that point in the US.
comment posted at 12:23 PM on Jan-19-02

Satan Doesn't Wear Sweaty Socks. Matthew Parris of The Times weighs in on the War on Terrorism, painting the U.S. as the 900-lb. gorilla of world affairs and offering the observation that maybe Al-Qaeda isn't as scary as the Bush and Blair administrations say it is.
comment posted at 5:09 AM on Jan-19-02
comment posted at 9:40 AM on Jan-19-02

Looks like the Saudis may kick the US out. The US presence in Saudi Arabia has been blamed for a lot of discontent in that country. Sounds as if once the campaign in Afghanistan is considered finished, the US may no longer be the guest of the Saudi royals.
comment posted at 11:50 AM on Jan-20-02

Can internet savvy skew a poll? When the stakes are high, is it fair for someone to bring an email plea to friends and relatives outside of the target area to influence the results? Here, the band at the school with the most votes gets to do a warm-up with the famous Blast! ensemble. The numbers are interesting (and yes, I probably do have inside info on this). As long as the same opportunities are available for others, is it still 'cheating'?
comment posted at 6:15 PM on Jan-18-02

Why libertarians can't get dates "So what if someone you hit it off with has different politics? You want that. "You can be like Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting," he notes encouragingly. The tension only makes things more charged." "I couldn't help wondering: Would women in my arty downtown Toronto social circle start warning each other? "Stay away from that one. You get to the restaurant and he harangues you about agricultural subsidies."" None of my female friends date Republicans OR Libertarians of any stripe, for reasons that are pretty obvious to us. And yes, we are all cute. Any thoughts on this?
comment posted at 9:46 AM on Jan-19-02
comment posted at 5:35 AM on Jan-21-02

Al Qaeda as death cult. From The Monde Diplomatique: "Al-Qaida has been thought of as a global or national political movement, or representative of an entire religion. It isn't. It's just another of the many death-obsessed sectarian movements to emerge in the past 20 years."

comment posted at 7:37 AM on Jan-18-02

Woomera detainees sew lips together At least 58 asylum seekers have sewn their lips together during a hunger strike at the Woomera detention centre. I don't know what to think, I know we have to take precautions against letting terrorists in, but this is just awful.
comment posted at 6:04 AM on Jan-18-02

Viewing begets more viewing: A Scientific American article exploring television addiction, its effects on the mind, and its similarity to other addictions. It raises the interesting question: Do people turn to TV because of boredom and loneliness, or does TV viewing make people more susceptible to boredom and loneliness?
comment posted at 5:49 AM on Jan-18-02

Here's a story, of a man named Brady... ...who's no longer allowed on the Brady Bunch merchandise! I noticed that his likeness was cut out of the Brady Bunch 2002 calendar. The Wash Post has an interesting article on the whole situation.
comment posted at 7:39 AM on Jan-18-02
comment posted at 9:48 AM on Jan-19-02

World's Scariest Satanists. Self described German satanist-vampires kill a person, various animals to fulfill their blood-lust. I don't think there's a political answer to this sort of bizarre behavior, but at least in America they would face the death penalty.
comment posted at 7:01 PM on Jan-17-02

Let Slip the Blogs of War For a while I didn't think I was gonna make it, but around 1800 hours I laid down a barrage of trenchant observations and we finally broke through...star studded article by tim cavanaugh.
comment posted at 7:40 AM on Jan-18-02

pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat. Modern art is rubbish says Institute of Contemporary Arts Chief Ivan Massow...
comment posted at 6:30 PM on Jan-17-02

Norfolk Island wants to ban anyone with HIV or hepatitis from visiting or living on the island. I can't see how they can get away with this.
comment posted at 6:35 AM on Jan-17-02

Bin Ladin, the fashion label. Forget Prada, forget Monica, Yeslam Binladin, one of Osama bin Laden's 53 siblings, is planning to launch a clothing line under a label that might carry a marketing challenge: "Bin Ladin."
comment posted at 6:24 AM on Jan-17-02

Chicagoans fight new stadium proposal. The Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois and other organizations have their reasons to stop the construction. Many are against the loss of lakefront public parkland, desecration of a National Historic Landmark, and the use of public funds for a for-profit venture. [Trib update] [friends of the parks petition]
comment posted at 6:19 AM on Jan-17-02

Se habla español? Not in Connecticut you don't. Or maybe the media shouldn't try reading so deeply into bar room brawls.
comment posted at 5:53 AM on Jan-17-02